The Breakfast Club

A member of my team at worked create a group several years ago in which each person in the group cycles through bringing breakfast on Fridays. There are quite a few people in the group, so I only end up bringing breakfast every few months and then on those other Fridays, I get to enjoy a free breakfast. =]

This Friday, I'm bringing in these delicious muffins. I've made them before and they are amazing.

Of course, I let the Kitchenaid do all the work.

I added in all the dry ingredients and let it mix them up.

Then added in the wet and the Kitchenaid went to town. 

I quadrupled the recipe so I would have plenty for work and still have some left over (thought I could eat those for breakfast a few days next week). As you can see, that's a LOT of batter.

The Kitchenaid has the strength of a million men. Give or take.

I made some of the muffins plain and others got royal treatment -- either blueberries or chocolate chips.

Bakin' on up!

The topping is so good. It has cinnamon in it and I loooove cinnamon.

This isn't even all the muffins, but it's all I could fit on the cooling rack(s). The Kitchenaid put in a long day and now it can relax while viewing the fruits of its labor...

Yay muffins.

Homemade Potato Soup

When I was in college, I worked for an outdoor writer/photographer and his wife. As an outdoor writer, he wrote about hunting/fishing/etc. They worked out of their home and the wife was the sweetest woman you could ever hope to meet. When she found out I liked to cook and that I was vegetarian, she was always trying to give me recipes, let me borrow cookbooks and give me ideas for vegetarian foods. She also gave me two of their cookbooks that they had written together. One was mainly about fish and the other mainly about deer, but they also included side dishes, appetizers, desserts, soups/salads and the like. I FINALLY got around to going through the books and the first thing I made was their potato soup recipe. We've had a lot of cold weather lately so it seemed like the perfect thing on a cold day.
 

Homemade Potato Soup (made vegetarian)

3 cups chicken or turkey broth (I used vegetable broth)

1 cup chopped onion

2 cups sliced potatoes

4 Tbsp butter

4 Tbsp all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

Pepper to taste

2 cups milk

Combine broth, onions and potatoes in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover. Let simmer for about 10 minutes (or until potatoes are tender).

Pour ingredients into a blender and blend about 30 seconds.

In the same sauce pan, melt butter. Mix in flour, salt, pepper and add milk all together. Cook and stir until mixture thickens and bubbles. Stir ingredients in from the blender. Cook until thoroughly heated.

I made a double batch and on the first day had it with fresh, french bread from Publix.

On the second day I had it with saltines and grated cheddar cheese. =] I loved it both ways and I was really pleased with how it turned out. GREAT for cold weather. Yum!

FGK Halloween Swap

Recently, Susan over at Five Great Kiddos hosted a Halloween/Fall Swap and I participated. It was the first swap I have been a part of and I loved it! It was so fun picking out what I was going to give and putting the whole thing together. And then getting the package in the mail was so exciting. Susan and I actually ended up being partners and I thought I'd show you what I sent and what Susan sent me.

Here's the package I made up:

 I added a magnetic to-do list, "Emergency Chocolate", a cute little ghost bowl, some glittery chipboard letters, ribbon, cupcake liners, spider web cards, a tiny ceramic pumpkin and some Halloween magnets that I made.

 When I received Susan's package, I was so excited! So many cute things -- like these adorable Halloween plates and napkins.

My oven got a mini-makeover as it went from this:

To this:

I got the cutest apron ever. =] 

Susan also sent these beautiful fall-themed cards.

How jealous are you over this necklace? I love it.

And she also sent these super cool notebooks.

I got really lucky!

In addition to this swap, Susan has been considering hosting a Christmas swap. If you're interested, you can hop on over to her blog and leave her a comment. =]

Thank you Target

For quite some time now, I've been on the prowl for a new TV stand to replace this:

It's the coffee table that I got along with the end tables from Craigslist. Yeah, it's been realllly good at hiding the cords and all...

After searching Craigslist/yard sales/thrift stores, I still hadn't found anything. I started stalking Target and found the beautiful Avington TV stand for $170  I loved it, but didn't want to throw down that much on the spot. I checked each week to see if maybe it had gone on sale and finally it did! So I snatched it up for $130.

Sure, it had to be put together, but that was no big deal.

Voila!

I love it and couldn't be more pleased. The PS3 and Wii fit perfectly and all the wires are hidden. Yay! I also love the drawers. They are perfect for hiding DVDs and Wii games.

I love the color too. It goes really well with the floors.

 Another mission accomplished.

Baked Ziti

Last week I wanted to make a quick and easy meal and as I've mentioned before I'm not one for measuring precisely...so I just threw some ingredients together to make baked ziti.

Boiling water for the pasta is always a good first step. ;-) 

I realize most people would use mozzarella cheese, buuuuuuuut I didn't have any so I just used cheddar cheese.

I just kept grating until I had a pretty nice pile going there.

Once the pasta was done, I strained it. Next, I drizzled some olive oil in the bottom of a clear baking dish. Then I poured some of the ziti into the bottom.

Then I poured some of my Ragu Super Vegetable Primavera sauce over the top of that and then sprinkled some of the cheese over it.

Then I kept layering the pasta, sauce and cheese. I then sprinkled some basil over the top and baked it at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes.

The final product came out like this.

 

 I had the aforementioned parmesan green beans as well.

Pretty good for a 30-minute meal. =]

Modem Stand

Ever since I got a dsl modem for the house, it’s been jutting out of the wall on an ugly foldable stand that I got when I moved in the house, and I haven’t really known what to do with it.

I  thought about moving the modem, but this is the only phone line in the house, and it would have cost waay more than I cared to pay for to put in a new line. So one day, I happened to find this lovely table:

I put that in place of the ugly foldable stand and it looked much better.

However, it still wasn’t enough. It’s true that the table looked a lot better, but I still didn’t like having the modem in plain sight in the entrance between the dining table and the kitchen, so I grabbed this box from Walmart.

After opening it up and cutting out a hole in the back, I put the modem in the box and ran the cords through the hole.

And finally, once that was done, stuck the box beneath the surface of the table so it blended in nicely and kept the modem out of sight.

I've been wanting to do this for a while now and I'm glad it's finally taken care of. :)

Beadboard Love

Ah, beadboard.... I don't have any in my house, but I sure want to. I have so many inspiration pictures saved that I drool over and hope to at some point DIY some beadboard in our half bath downstairs.

I don't know if I would want it to go up halfway or 3/4 of the way. I think both ways are beautiful and I definitely want a pop of color on the top.

This is closer to how the bathroom is, but the bathroom is not as big. I love the contrast of gray and white.

This picture is so enticing. I love that beautiful blue color on the walls against the beadboard. So many options!

An example of beadboard running higher up the wall. I like this too.

This one is a little dark for my taste, but I still think it's quite lovely.

One last picture! I like the shelf they added on the left. Nice and functional. I probably need something like that since I only have a pedastal sink for storage.

Anyone else with a love for beadboard? Or wainscoting in general? Do you have any in your home?

(All pics from Google)